The kidnapping of Sarah McGee
by OzGeek
Summary: McGee's sister is kidnapped by a madman and he feels there is no one he can turn to for help. Six chapters in all. Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

McGee's eyelids squeezed shut reflexively in an effort to escape the terrible sight before him: a human body reduced to its basest components. Limbs, sinew and chunks of organs lay strewn across the room like a B-grade horror movie. The entire room smelt like a butcher's shop; which to some extent it was. It was almost inconceivable that these disparate pieces were once part of a living breathing person: filled with love, hope and ambition.

He swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and brought the camera up again, letting the auto focus do its job work. That allowed him to defocus his own eyes so he did not have to process the images himself.

Ducky and Palmer were standing at the doorway deliberating on where to begin. The job was so big and so ghastly, it seemed insurmountable.

McGee took a final shot and looked down at his feet. He should try for another angle but, even with protective bootees, every step contaminated the crime scene: there was no clear piece of floor. The best you could hope for was to minimise the impact.

"That's probably enough photos, Timothy," said Ducky softly. "Mr Palmer and I will start collecting the actual body parts if you can gather up anything else for the evidence bags."

"Sure." McGee sidestepped gingerly over something he didn't recognise, placed the camera outside the door and collected a handful of plastic bags.

Scouring the floor for non-biological material to the sound of body parts being slapped against each other in a huge bag, he was reminded of his college forensics course. The simulations always involved just a single body part – an arm, a leg, a spleen. At the time he assumed it was for modelling simplicity, it had never occurred to him the human body might actually come apart like that.

Then, while trying to extract a piece of metal from some flesh, he saw part of a face and his heart dropped: it was her. Until that moment, he had still held out some insane hope that the conglomerate of body pieces might belong to some other random person; but now there was no doubt.

Suddenly he heaved into an evidence bag, the liquid feeling unusually warm through the thick plastic. He closed his eyes again to compose himself.

"Alright, Timothy?"

"Yes thanks, Ducky." He sealed the evidence bag, tagged it 'collateral evidence' and placed it on the pile. He'd have to remember to remove it before it landed on Abby's desk.

He looked up as Gibbs appeared at the door. "It's her, Boss."

"We should wait until we have DNA."

McGee stared at his boss in disbelief. Now who was holding out false hope? "I've been looking at that face for two days, boss."

"Yeah, OK," Gibbs surrendered. "I'll go see Lt James and tell him what we've got."

"I should go with you."

Gibbs looked down at the young agent and nodded his agreement grimly. "I'll get Ziva and DiNozzo to finish up here."

* * *

Lt Rick James had come into McGee's life only two days before. A Naval computer programmer, his sister had disappeared in the dead of night, her kidnapper leaving behind a single heart-shaped note with detailed instructions that he was to go about his usual business and tell no one what had happened or she would die. Tony joked the kidnapper had taken his sister because it wasn't as if computer geeks had girlfriends or wives, but then Tony wasn't well disposed towards computer geeks nowadays, if he ever had been.

When reminder messages started flashing up on Lt James cell and in untraceable emails to his work and home accounts, McGee became involved. Whoever it was obviously knew Lt James daily routine and was computer savvy enough to test McGee's prowess. Together McGee and Lt James worked frantically day and night at headquarters and in McGee's home: to no avail. Even McGee's sister had learnt to keep her distance, working diligently at his writing desk in uncharacteristic silence.

They had a suspect: a dishonourably discharged Navy computer geek accused of treason. The profiler had deemed him a perfect candidate; he had a history of violence, a tendency towards vendettas and a grudge against all his fellow computer geeks. Unfortunately, they were not able to sway a judge and a warrant was denied.

The discovery of this body gave them enough evidence to bring him in for questioning, but they did not have enough yet to convict.

* * *

Gibbs and McGee stood in front of Lt James immaculate blue painted wooden door. This part of the job was never easy. Gibbs knocked twice and the door snapped opened. McGee would never forget the look on Rick James' face as their eyes met. The next moment, he was lying on the ground dazed with an aching jaw. Above him and somewhere off to the left, Gibbs was holding back a crazed madman who was hell bent on killing him.

"Why didn't you get the trace?" James yelled. "She'd be alive if you'd done your goddam job."

McGee couldn't answer. Part of him thought he was probably right; the rest of him was too dizzy and nauseous to talk. He watched Gibbs manhandle Rick back into the house.

"Boss?"

"Stay put, McGee."

It was an easy request to fill: the world was eddying around him. His eyes slid shut of their own accord and his mind's whirlwind took him for another spin.


	2. Loss

"McGee," the voice was faint and distant. "McGee!"

Two bright blue beacons shone through the fog. Slowly they resolved into a pair of concerned eyes and he became aware that he was lying flat on his back with someone hovering above him. Gibbs was tapping him gently on the good side of his face while clamping an ice pack to the less fortunate side.

"You with me?"

"Yeah," he groaned above the steady dull thumping in his head.

"Paramedics are here."

Sure enough, someone was shining a light in his eyes, listening to his chest, taking his blood pressure and asking him inane questions like how many fingers he had and what day it was. As if any of it mattered: today his last friend in the world had officially disowned him.

As the paramedic completed his routine, McGee reflected that the fallout from his book had an extraordinarily long half-life. Abby had already given him the "you've changed, you're a snob, I can't believe I went out with you" speech. Ziva had abused him for being 'arrogant' and spent most of her time in his presence with a sour expression smeared across her face. Then there was Tony. Tony had not spoken a single word to him since reaching the end of his novel. McGee had grown accustomed to Tony's ridicule, put downs and hazing over the years but the silence was much, much worse.

"You staying alone tonight?" the paramedic broke through his reverie.

"No, my sister is staying over."

"Then I think you're good to go."

* * *

McGee reluctantly slid his apartment key into the lock and turned the handle. The door swung open to reveal a floor littered with clothes, books and even food. His sister had not changed her personal habits.

"Hey," she called from his writing desk, obscured by his room dividing bookcase.

Wordlessly, he shut the door firmly behind him.

"Tim?" She wondered around the corner of the bookcase curiously and stopped dead when she saw his face. "What happened to you?"

"We found her."

Sarah looked shocked for a moment. "And?"

"We were too late."

"We should go and see Rick," she started. The three of them had become close in the last couple of days.

"I don't think he's in the mood for company."

Her eyes fell upon his swollen jaw. "Rick did that?"

"Yep."

"Whoa. And this is the job you love, right?"

He smiled humourlessly. "It has its bad days."

"Hey, let me make you pizza for dinner."

McGee shuddered.

"OK, I'll shout you an actual pizza."

"Better."

"You got any money?"

He shook his head carefully in disbelief and dug out his wallet: sisters.

* * *

Sarah McGee knew her role tonight: saving her big brother from a major bout of depression. It had been looming on the horizon for a week now as one by one his co-workers, who constituted the bulk of his friends, had started turning against him – or to 'The Dark Side', as Tim put it.

Now that he had lost Rick's friendship too, she had her work cut out for her. She had to get him to talk through it. If she let him sulk or slide into any form of introspection, all would be lost. Hauling her brother from the edge of despair was a skill she had learned as a young child: a depressed big brother is not a fun big brother.

So she made him talk. She poked and prodded carefully among his insecurities, covering old ground, exploring new areas until, little by little, he began to reassemble. When he had regained some of his usual mood, she tried her next tack: make him feel useful.

"I have an essay due the day after tomorrow: could you give it a once over?"

"Sure." McGee stood up and stretched. "I'll do it as a little late night reading."

She found him 20 minutes later slumped in bed sound asleep with her essay in his lap. Smiling gently, she rescued her manuscript and ferreted about in the bed for the red pen he had been using. Then she roused him slightly, telling him to lie down while pulling him bodily until his head was on the pillow. He muttered something incomprehensible, rolled over and went back to sleep.

* * *

McGee awoke the next morning to brilliant sunshine and chorusing birds. The whole world was trying to cheer him up. He looked across the bed; it was empty – no sign that Sarah had even been there. His face held a puzzled frown for a moment. "Sarah?"

The silence was deafening. Crawling his way out of the bed he poked his head around the corner to check if she was on the computer: nothing. His throat tightened a little. "Sarah?"

Her manuscript lay on the writing desk. He walked over and ran a disconcerted hand over the cold paper as though she was somehow connected to it. An uncomfortable sensation began to creep over his skin and his tone rose in panic. "Sarah?"

Rounding the bookcase divider he saw a note on the kitchen bench. Flooded with relief, he took three enormous strides to reach it. Then he stopped dead. It was a heart shaped card.

His cell beeped an SMS and he grabbed at it urgently: "I have her, tell no one or she dies. I see you everywhere."


	3. Isolation

McGee scanned the squad room as he exited the elevator; wide-eyed and frantic. He couldn't remember what he'd put on today nor the state of his apartment as he ran out the door. It wouldn't have surprised him to discover he was naked. His heart pounded so hard in his throat it was impossible to breathe or swallow, the booming beats echoing in his ears.

Feeling raw and exposed, he rushed past Tony, who was studiously ignoring him, to the sanctuary of his desk. Ziva caught his eye but only pursed her lips in disgust and returned to her work. Sitting heavily, he booted up his computer and nearly screamed. The message on his screen read: "Tell no one."

He jumped as Gibbs stormed into the bullpen.

"What's wrong boss?" he heard Tony ask.

"They let the bastard go last night; not enough evidence," Gibbs growled dumping a pile of folders on his desk. "He's an ex-navy geek fired for security breaches, holds a grudge against every computer geek in the known universe; what more do they need?"

"Evidence?" Tony offered.

Gibbs turned on him. "Well, get me some!"

"On it, Boss."

"We put a surveillance team on him last night," Gibbs continued. "You three relive them this afternoon. I want you on his tail all night. Everywhere he goes, you will be there. Do you understand?"

"Yes Boss," they chorused.

"McGee."

McGee started guiltily. Surely Gibbs could not know what was going on.

"Down to Abby, see what you can pull out of the forensics."

* * *

McGee tried to calm the adrenaline coursing through his system as he approached Abby's lab. She was at least still talking to him, albeit harshly. He paused at the door and took a stuttering breath. Abby's music was loud and angry - never a good sign. Peering cautiously around the door frame, he attempted a surreptitious reconnaissance and found her stomping through the lab, muttering ominously to herself. She caught him spying as he tried to duck for cover.

"McGee," her tone was menacing. "I had a date last night with a guy whose sole aim was to check the stuff in my bedroom against the details in your book. He brought a copy with him. You've ruined my life, Hemingway."

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly: he could not deal with this right now.

"Look," he started impatiently, entering the lab. "It's just a book, it's not real life. It's not as if I wrote that you were kidnapped by a serial killer and chopped to pieces and.." he bit down hard on his lower lip while his brain caught up with his mouth. The panic welling up inside him was threatening to explode.

"No," she countered. "It's just a few lives that have been dragged into the public eye and judged so that you can shop at Armani, wear a shiny new watch, film people with your phone, drive a Porsche and pick up cheerleaders."

McGee panted in agitation, as she paced the room. This was getting them nowhere and showed no signs of reaching a logical conclusion. It was imperative they find evidence on this guy. Why couldn't Abby see that? Why did she have to spend so much time worrying about stupid personal things? It was time to re-focus her: they could deal with the rest when they had caught him.

"What have you got on the case, Abby?"

She glared at him for a moment and then turned abruptly to the screen. "Most of the stuff you guys brought in was metal – chains mainly. I'm pretty sure he chained her to the wall first. In fact I think I found the point on the wall where the chains were. Here, I'll show you on the crime scene." She hit a key and a blood-filled room leapt to the screen.

Abby continued pointing and talking but all McGee could see was the room plastered in human remains. His mind superimposed Sarah's screams over the image. It had been years since he'd heard her scream but the sound had been clearly been stored somewhere in his mind's recesses. Or maybe his imagination invented the sound. His airways constricted, slowly squeezing the life from him. The blood red pictures slashed across the screen started to pale, through pink to white. Then it went black.

"McGee!"

Abby checked to make sure the picture had really gone from the screen. Yes, there was nothing there and yet McGee was still transfixed: jaw hanging slackly, shallow ragged breathing and, now she looked closer, he was trembling. She cursed herself: what had she been thinking? The victim's brother was a friend of McGee's. The shock had bitten deep.

"Tim!" His eyes jittered a little in her direction. It was a start.

She pushed him onto a stool, his body seeming little more than a loose jumble of bones and sinew. Holding his face in both hands, as much to steady him as to force his attention, she called urgently: "Tim!"

His eyes floated to meet hers and he sucked in a gasp of air. "What?"

"You OK?"

Slowly he became aware of the tremors traversing his body. "Yeah," he breathed, lowering his eyes from her interrogative gaze. "I've just been under a bit of pressure."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I know he was a friend of yours."

Abby collapsed around him, her warm embrace numbing his aching soul. Wrapping his arms around her tiny waist, he sank into her, burying his head in her shoulder. A surge of comfort enveloped him. His grip on his emotions loosened briefly and the previously restrained tremors devolved into frenzied shaking which required enormous self control to dampen.

He desperately wanted to explain everything to her, but knowledge might put her in danger and he could not afford to lose anyone else.

"Whatchya got Abs?" called Gibbs as he entered.

Abby instantly released her grip, leaving him cold, alone and vulnerable again. "Oh, our victim was chained to the wall," she answered succinctly.

"McGee?" Gibbs queried with a frown.

"I'm alright boss."

Gibbs was not fooled. "I think we need to pull you off this case," he muttered gruffly.

McGee panicked: "No boss!"

Gibbs regarded him silently for a moment. "Ducky's got something to show us." He turned for the door.

McGee rocketed off the chair to follow him but a call from Abby made him turn back.

"And McGee: just so you know - I'm still mad about the book."

McGee acknowledged her with a sad smile and just managed to slip into the elevator as the doors glided shut. He had Gibbs alone.


	4. Confiding

Gibbs stood at the front of the elevator in silence, his back pointedly in McGee's direction. Steeling himself, McGee leant past his boss and hit the emergency switch. The elevator ground to a halt.

"He's got Sarah," he stated simply looking straight ahead.

"When?"

"This morning: I got the note, my cell's being traced, my email's tapped and…" his voice broke under the strain.

"Signs of a struggle?"

McGee distractedly compared the unkempt state of his apartment last night to whatever he could remember of it this morning. "Hard to tell."

"It's a crime scene; we need to get someone over there."

"Not.."

"No we'll use another team. No information is to leak out about this."

McGee nodded nervously. "OK"

"Does Abby know?" He could hear the concern in Gibbs' voice.

"I didn't want to get her involved," his voice faded, "just in case."

"Good," said Gibbs quietly and McGee knew he'd made the right call.

Gibbs turned to look at the younger agent. Reflected in his eyes he saw utter devastation but there was also a quiet strength and the courage to do what was necessary. "We'll get her back." He reached forward and revived the elevator.

McGee swallowed dryly. He trusted his boss, he wanted to believe him but Gibbs had told Rick James the same thing not two days before.

Gibbs and McGee glided noiselessly into autopsy where Tony and Ziva were waiting for them leaning casually against a vacant gurney. The tension fizzed as McGee took his place against alongside Tony. Palmer shot him a dirty look and left the room while Tony deliberately shuffled further away from him.

On the opposite table lay the patiently reconstructed body of Rick James' sister, underlying the horrific nature of the case at hand. McGee felt the bile shift restlessly in his stomach but he was experienced enough with the sensation to hold himself together.

"I called you down here because I wanted you to appreciate the mind-set of the person you are dealing with," Ducky began from behind the body. His hand swept over the chunks of human flesh lying before him. "There are two things. Firstly, each joint has been sliced through – initially." He performed a chopping action with his hand to reinforce his message. "But then each limb has been torn with a torsional movement," he illustrated the motion with his hands as he spoke, "twisting each limb from its joint or socket." He paused for emphases. "This is someone who wants to feel the sensation of ripping a human body to pieces."

McGee felt his knees wobble slightly and he tightened his grip on the edge of the gurney.

"You said a second?" Gibbs prompted.

"Yes," Ducky confirmed seriously walking around the table to stand in front of the four investigators. "From the evidence we have the victim was alive and most probably conscious when she was torn limb from limb."

McGee felt his legs turn to rubber as his stomach heaved. An icy sensation cascaded down his body leaving him cold and clammy. Someone was pushing him onto a chair and he found himself staring down at Ducky's shoes which were dripping with half-digested pizza. It reminded him of Sarah. When he looked up, Tony had magically translated to the other side of Ziva who was trying not to retch in sympathy. He lowered his head again, burying it in his hands.

"Back to work you two," he heard Gibbs say. "Go through everything we know about this case. I want enough evidence to fry this psycho."

Tony and Ziva did not need to be asked twice.

When the door had closed firmly behind them, Ducky bent down to McGee who raised his eyes wearily. "How long has he had her?"

McGee jerked to Gibbs who protested: "I didn't tell him."

"Timothy," Ducky explained kindly stepping casually out of his shoes and shuffling in stockinged feet to a cupboard in the autopsy room, "it has been a few years since you christening a pair of my New Balances." Popping open a door, he reached in, grabbed a shiny new pair of trainers and started lacing them on.

"How many of those do you have?" asked Gibbs in amazement.

"I budget a pair a month, you never really get them clean." He returned his attention to McGee. "How long?"

McGee averted his eyes: "This morning."

"Good we've still got some time. Abby assures me this sicko chains them up first."

Hopelessness descended upon McGee.

Ducky clapped him on the back reassuringly. "We'll get her back, Timothy."

McGee looked up at the wise old face. He wanted to believe him, but belief might not be enough.


	5. Breakthroughs

Tony and Ziva looked up as McGee and Gibbs entered the bullpen and tracked the pair as they walked, side-by-side, to McGee's desk.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the sight; Tony rose from his desk and made his way to Ziva. "That is so wrong," he said as McGee sat at his terminal and Gibbs placed both hands on his shoulders.

"What is he doing?" whispered Ziva in astonishment.

McGee tapped frantically at his keyboard with Gibbs watching patiently over his shoulder. They kept their voices conspiratorially low.

"He knows something," Tony muttered.

"Who?"

"Probie, and he's told Gibbs. They're not telling us."

Ziva observed Gibbs' paternal tap on McGee's shoulder as he returned to his desk. "I agree. There is something going on."

"You two got something you'd like to be doing?" asked Gibbs curtly.

Ziva buried her head in her work while Tony scuttled for his desk.

* * *

The elevator ding brought four heads up from their work. An NCIS agent alighted and approached Gibbs, depositing an armful of evidence bags on his desk. McGee was there in a heartbeat, followed seconds later by Tony and Ziva.

"What've got boss?" Tony asked.

"New victim and a new crime scene."

"Who?"

"That's need to know."

Tony lifted up two evidence bags to eye level, one containing a kitchen knife and the other, a blood soaked tea towel. He peered through the second bag at McGee. "Bloody towel: never a good sign. The magnifying effect of the plastic bag afforded Tony an intimate view of the color slowly draining from McGee's face as his eyes rolled up into his head. "What the…"

He lowered the bags as McGee crumpled away from him landing with a deadening thump, limbs thrown askew.

Gibbs was already on the phone to Ducky. A few short words and he slammed the phone down. "You two get that evidence down to Abby," he said.

"Both of us?"

"Go!"

With a cursory glance at McGee's unconscious form, they grabbed the evidence bags and ran. The elevator was at autopsy waiting to come up. Ziva and Tony looked at each other and in silent agreement, sprinted for the stairs. It took less than a minute for them to fly down the stairs to Abby's lab, thrust the bags into her surprised arms and race back up the stairwell to the squad room.

By the time they returned to the bullpen, red-faced and panting, McGee was already sitting up looking pale and shaken, Gibbs' arm comfortingly around his shoulders. Ducky arrived a moment later trailed by a rather reluctant Palmer.

"Something is definitely going on," Tony confided to Ziva as they watched the two medical professionals approach McGee.

"I agree," said Ziva. "In Mossad, you would be fired for becoming so emotionally involved in a case."

Tony looked surprised. "You'd loose your job?"

Ziva frowned. "Your job: no. No, I don't mean it like that. Fired: like ready, aim, .."

"Ah."

Ducky stood beside McGee, waiting impatiently for Palmer who was dragging his feet. "Mr Palmer," he called, "we have a patient."

"Yes doctor," Palmer's expressionless face betrayed his distaste.

"If you think I'm bending these old knees down there, you are sadly mistaken."

Palmer glanced briefly at his superior then crouched to McGee. His countenance softened as he met McGee's pale, haggard face and haunted eyes. "Ah, have you taken any medication recently? Feeling unwell?"

"It's not physiological, Mr Palmer," said Ducky knowingly.

Palmer looked up sharply; Ducky's gaze told him that all would become clear at a later time. "Oh" Returning his attention to McGee, Palmer assessed his patient in light of the new information. He'd done the psychiatry course, though he never could see it's relevance to autopsy, but now that he looked at the face he had been avoiding for weeks he suddenly realised how much had changed in the interim.

Placing an awkward hand on McGee's cold sweaty back, he saw McGee's eyes slowly swivel towards him. There he met uncertainty, but also relief.

"I'm just going to give you a once over," said Jimmy kindly.

'Thank you," McGee whispered.

Jimmy smiled sympathetically and started his examination.

* * *

"DiNozzo, David," called Gibbs. "Get your gear, you are due to relieve that surveillance team."

"Boss?"

Gibbs had expected the question. He turned to McGee and evaluated him: fragile, emotionally broken but driven. "OK," he finally conceded.

* * *

Ziva scanned the walls of the apartment building with her night vision goggles as Tony reported in; both seemingly oblivious of their agitated backseat companion. Their target had begun his journey around 3 am and they had been tracking him as closely as they dared for nearly an hour.

"I see it," said Ziva softly. "Ninth floor second from the right it's the only…ahhhhh"

She chocked on the strap as McGee grabbed the binoculars from her and dragged them into the backseat. "Got it!" he hissed.

"McGee…" came Ziva strangled cry.

He dropped the binoculars and opened the car door. Tony and Ziva caught up with him as he reached the stairs.

"That's nine floors, Probie," Tony warned.

McGee shot him a dangerous look. "He may be monitoring the elevator." And he was off at a pace Tony had never seen him achieve.

* * *

Ziva picked the lock silently as the male agents stood ready. She withdrew with a nod and all three burst in.

The room was almost bare save the small woman slumped against the wall with her hands chained high above her head; her long dark wavy hair falling across her face. McGee almost ran when he saw her but paused just long enough to avoid the trajectory of a knife blade whizzing passed his nose to hit the wall inches from Ziva's face where it quivered. Without flinching, Ziva retrieved it and sliced it straight through the perpetrator's heart. He went down without a sound.

McGee bolted for his target then paused. There had been no movement from her; she had not even looked up at the sound of them bursting in or the knife hitting the wall. He might already be too late. Kneeling on the floor beside her, he gently swept back her hair with one hand and lifted up her chin with the other. He whispered quietly to her: "You're not Sarah."


	6. Reconcilliation

McGee did not know how long he had been sitting there with his legs folded underneath him like a small child; face hot from the flush of tears. The only thing he knew for certain was that not one moment of his time in this position had been spent alone. Tony had been there sitting cross legged on the floor beside him saying nothing but just being there. McGee could no longer feel disdain radiating from him but he didn't know if that was because Tony had ceased to emit or because he was too numb to receive.

When Tony finally broke the silence, his voice was gentle. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I thought you hated me." It sounded childish even to his ears.

"Yeah, but we like Sarah."

McGee slid his eyes to Tony's worried face. He knew he was trying to lighten the mood but the added humor only strengthened his desire to breakdown and cry for the rest of his life. If Tony was trying to be nice to him, things must really be bad. He closed his eyes and shut out the world.

"Hey," he heard Tony's efforts to bring him back to reality. "She's not dead. We just have to find her."

McGee heaved his eyes open again. "And the only person who can tell us where she is is lying over there on the floor."

Tony swallowed, uncertain of how to counter the logic.

"McGee," Ziva spoke up, frowning at the cell in her hand. "This phone was not the one used to call you."

McGee's sensors pricked up. "What?"

"Your number is not on the call list and Abby says this is not the area from which the calls to your cell phone originated."

"Maybe he has two phones," Tony offered.

"Or there is a copy cat out there," Ziva mused.

"But then they would have to have the same sort of connections as the killer: they knew my cell number, had access to my home computer, my work computer……" McGee froze mid-sentence with his jaw hanging open.

"McGee?"

"No, he wouldn't."

"Who?"

McGee struggled to his feet. He had no idea how long he had been sitting on his legs but the pins and needles where excruciating. Suddenly he realised the room was abuzz with activity: police were taking statements and Ducky and Jimmy were just arriving. Moments ago there had just been him and Tony alone on the entire planet. There was no time to ponder the incongruity. "Let's go."

* * *

The sun was just rising as they met Gibbs outside Rick Jame's house. "We'll do this nice and slow," he instructed as they reached the front door. "Ziva,Tony: go around the back. McGee: knock gently and see if we can convince him we don't know anything."

McGee looked Gibbs hard in the eye. "Screw that," he shot off the lock and barged in, gun at the ready.

Gibbs looked back at Tony as they followed McGee in. "I must talk to you about your mentoring program."

A quick search of the main house revealed nothing but McGee was not to be deterred. "I'm sure he said something about a wine cellar," he muttered.

Then he saw it, a small door tucked away under the stairs. He nodded to Gibbs and opened the door slowly to reveal a short stairwell. The four agents stalked down the stairs to be met by another door which Ziva picked almost instantaneously. Opening the door a crack, she observed Sarah McGee clearly tied to a chair in the middle of a room. Behind her, gun trained on the door, stood Rick James.

"Try it and she dies," he said calmly.

Ziva slowly entered the room, holding her gun high.

"And the rest of you."

Feeling Gibbs crouch to the floor taking aim, Tony spoke loudly as he stepped into the room to draw James' attention:. "And how are you planning on all this panning out?"

In an instant, Gibbs shot the gun from James' outstretched hand. The door flew open to reveal Gibbs and McGee with guns levelled.

Rick James sneered at McGee. "How does it feel to think your sister is going to be chopped into a million pieces?"

McGee stared at the hazel eyes down the barrel of his gun, his trigger finger aching impatiently. "Not as good as this is gonna feel."

"McGee," Gibbs warned.

McGee did not answer, his attention focused on the pleasure of transforming Rick James' body into an amorphous smear across the room.

"Tim?" Sarah's voice sounded uncertain; almost as though she didn't want him to kill her kidnapper in cold blood.

Rick James was smiling. "Do it".

The sweat trickled down McGee's face. James was inviting him to shoot, willing him to kill and it suddenly occurred to him that this man had nothing left to live for. He wanted to be put down. Slowly he lowered his gun and was genuinely glad to see the suffering on James' face at the realisation that he was going to live. Tony and Ziva raced forward and clamped handcuffs on him.

Holstering his weapon reluctantly, McGee slowly approached his sister as she sat tied to the chair; disbelief that she was still alive plastered across his face. Kneeling at her side, he wrapped his arms around her. He had never imagined he would miss her that much. The age difference was such that he could remember her appearing in his life, the shift in his parent's attention, the thought that they had just halved his inheritance. Somewhere between then and now she had become an integral part of his existence and he no could more live without her than without his brain or heart.

Sarah McGee closed her eyes and breathed in the mixture of dry cleaning and old spice. Beyond the comforting warmth of his strong body, she could feel an underlying trembling that reminded her how much her big brother still felt responsible for her. "You know I still have an assignment due tomorrow."

He withdrew slowly with a gentle snort. "I think they might grant you an extension."

His fingers fumbled with the ropes for a moment until Ziva's knife encroached and he yielded to the more efficient method. He took the opportunity to remove his trench coat ready to drape it across Sarah, the second she was free. It was just past dawn: she must be freezing.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked concerned.

"No," she said. "He came over after you fell asleep. Said he just wanted to talk and apologise. After I let him in he shoved something over my mouth and suddenly I was here."

"But there was blood," McGee's voice faded as he tried to squeeze out the words.

"What?"

"On the towel."

"Oh, I was making a late night snack; I cut myself with the knife."

McGee closed his eyes and let the relief wash over him. "Thank God."

* * *

"Ever miss having a sibling Boss?" Tony asked as they drove back to headquarters through the quiet early morning streets. He was sharing the back seat with the slumbering McGee siblings: Sarah snuggled comfortably against her brother, McGee with his head nestled atop his sister's with one arm wrapped protectively around her waist.

"Nope, not even a little," Gibbs replied.

"Me neither."


End file.
